A Compleat Treatise On Perspective, In Theory And Practice; On The True Principles Of Dr. Brook Taylor. Made Clear, In Theory, By Various Moveable Schemes, And Diagrams; And Reduced To Practice, In The Most Familiar and Intelligent Manner; Shewing How To Delineate All Kinds Of Regular Objects, By Rule. The Theory And Projection Of Shadows, By Sun-Shine, And By Candle-Light. The Effects Of Reflected Light, On Objects; Their Reflected Images, On The Surface Of Water, And On Polished, Plane Surfaces, In All Positions. The Whole Explicitly Treated; And Illustrated, In A Great Variety Of Familiar Examples; In Four Books. Embellished With An Elegant Frontispiece, And Forty-Eight Plates. Containing Diagrams, Views, And Original Designs, In Architecture, &c. Neatly Engraved. All Originals; Invented, Delineated, And, Great Part, Engraved By The Author, Thomas Malton. The Second Edition, Corrected and improved; With Large Additions.

All plates are folding except the frontis. and nos. 26, 27, 28, 37. Four are fitted with moveable pieces (4, 5, 8, 37).

Malton's book was first published in 1775 (and probably in parts in 1774-5: Malton's publisher's imprint on several of the plates retains these dates). This second edition was published after a fire had destroyed the stock of the first edition - and the author here includes an account of his dispute with the printers Cox and Bigg and paper-merchants Wright and Gill ('A True Case, Between The Author, Of A Late Publication, His Printers, and Paper Merchants'). The work was reissued in 1779 - with re-set title-page, re-set dedication and a new table of contents, and without 'A True Case...'.

The book has been described as one of the most complete studies of perspective of the eighteenth century, and one suited equally to artists and architects and to mathematicians. Besides his schematic diagrams, Malton includes clear representations of roofs and staircases (pl. 6, 32) and engineering devices (pl. 35), and a view of St Paul's church, Covent Garden, in shadow.

This was the first substantial book on perspective published after the founding of the Royal Academy in December 1768 (article XII of whose Instrument of Foundation specifically provides for the teaching of perspective), and many Academicians subscribed for copies (see the section of 'Royal Academicians and other Artists, &c.' in the list of Subscribers). By 1802 the Academy's library contained sixteen books on perspective, including editions of the classic treatises by Vignola, Bosse, Niceron, Pozzo and Sirigatti, together with works by more recent writers on the subject such as Cowley, Fournier, Hamilton, Kirby and James Malton. However, despite its author's dedication to the president and members of the Academy, the present volume was not acquired until 1879.